


A Deserved Position

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Come Marking, Corporal Punishment, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content, light humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 10:51:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17599931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: Pallas had only been in the employ of Nikandros's household for less than three weeks, and already he was in enough trouble to require serious correction.





	A Deserved Position

**Author's Note:**

> **Important:** Pallas is a little shy of 18, which I don't really consider underage, especially for the canonical setting. But if that's a problem for you, please opt out now.
> 
> Written for a Nikandros/Pallas rarepair ask on tumblr. Also fills my Kink Bingo 'humiliation' square. It's very tame as far as humiliation goes, but I'm claiming it anyway ~~because there's no 'punishment' on my bingo card, damn it~~.

Nikandros looked down at the newest addition to his guards. 

Pallas had only been in the employ of Nikandros's household for less than three weeks, and already he was in enough trouble to require serious correction. Nikandros would almost have second-guessed his decision to take him on at all, given that, except that he could hardly have turned the boy's application down without offending Pallas's father, which was more trouble than it was worth. Besides, Nikandros had seen the boy on the wrestling sands and in the training salles. He already had skill beyond a lot of Nikandros's more seasoned men, and would likely only get better with experience. For he was very young, still, at seventeen. He was well over a year younger than Nikandros himself had been when he'd started his commitment at the Kingsmeet. Nikandros knew he hadn't been the most responsible young man before his time there (though that had mostly been Damen's influence rather than his own fault, Nikandros still maintained). Despite that, he'd managed to be drilled into shape well enough. So Nikandros didn't doubt that Pallas could be taught as well, as long as Nikandros put him back on the right path.

Nikandros surveyed the top of Pallas's head, noting the way his neck was barely bent. His head certainly wasn't inclined so far that Nikandros couldn't still see Pallas's eyes past his curls. They were facing straight ahead rather than down apologetically at Nikandros's feet the way they should have been, considering. 

Nikandros didn't get the impression that the poor form of Pallas's show of penitence was due to him being purposefully stubborn, but rather that he was simply unpractised at this. The sons of high-ranked nobility generally stood tall, with their eyes raised. Under ideal circumstances, Pallas should never need to bow to anyone but royalty. So Pallas had probably never had to officially kneel for anyone quite like this before. He was unaccustomed to personal submission, though he was old enough that he'd probably experienced the other side of it with slaves. 

"I'm reliably informed that you've neglected your duty," Nikandros said. "You were two whole hours late reporting to your Captain this morning. And it's the third time you've missed the start of training since arriving at Marlas to serve in my Guard. Do I have that correct?"

Pallas half-raised his head, as if by instinct, intending to look directly up at Nikandros the way he normally would when being addressed. He just barely stopped himself in time. "Yes."

Sternly, Nikandros corrected, "Yes, _Kyros_."

Pallas echoed him obediently enough that Nikandros let the disrespect implied in him leaving out the title slide. It had most likely been an unthinking mistake. That was forgivable. That shirking of his duties wasn't. 

"I lost track of time visiting a friend in the village," Pallas elaborated, even though Nikandros hadn't asked for an explanation in addition to his acknowledgement.

A 'friend'. Whom he was supposedly visiting that early in the morning, when the sun was still barely above the horizon. Right.

Pallas was a handsome young man. Nikandros bet he had no shortage of 'friends' willing to keep him up so late that he would sleep well past the usual dawn reporting time set for those the guards who hadn't been scheduled to keep watch through the night. Or perhaps Pallas and his friend were actually _still_ busy in the mornings, with Pallas being unwilling to depart until he was fully satisfied. Nikandros remembered what it was like to be seventeen. It seemed a long time ago sometimes, though admittedly Nikandros was still nowhere near being an old man by any stretch of the imagination. He wasn't even quite ten years older than Pallas, in fact.

"That's no excuse," said Nikandros.

"No, Kyros," Pallas agreed. "I have no excuses to give."

"You have that much right. Do you understand the position you've put me in?" Nikandros asked. "Men of your rank don't just get publicly tied to a post and whipped by the Captain a few times for their indiscretions. It isn't _done_. But neither can I let this pass unanswered. So it falls to me as Kyros to dole out a fitting punishment in private instead."

He waited for a beat, letting that sink in, before ordering, "Lift the back of your skirt and keep holding it up."

A little uncertainly, Pallas asked, "Kyros?"

"You heard me." Nikandros reached to the side for the rod he'd had a servant bring in for just this purpose before Pallas had arrived at Nikandros's study to answer Nikandros's summons. "I'm not going to take a whip to your back. It wouldn't do to potentially scar you like that. But you've been acting like a child rather than a man with a position and responsibilities, and children get a switch to the behind when they misbehave badly enough to need it. And I have no intention of letting you get out of feeling the full brunt of it by delivering the hits through the material of your chiton. So _lift your skirt_. I won't ask a third time."

Pallas's cheeks pinked, but he clearly understood that Nikandros's warning tone was deadly serious, because he complied. He didn't even try to meet Nikandros's eyes now, obviously ashamed to be not just made to go to his knees, but now also told to present like a naughty young boy who needed to be caned. 

Nikandros circled around behind him, the long thin barrel of the switch tapping against his palm, testing the weight and feel of it.

"Now bend forward until your nose is almost pressed to the ground," demanded Nikandros.

Pallas made an indistinct noise. It wasn't exactly a denial. More likely it was just shock. But he did hesitate even so, just for a moment. It was a moment too long.

"You'll be lucky if I don't make you kiss, or even _lick_ , the floor while you're down there," advised Nikandros. "Don't tempt me by continuing to make this more difficult than it needs to be."

Pallas was obviously keen to avoid that fate, for he bent forward pretty quickly after that. He braced himself with the flat of one forearm against the ground while the other hand continued to hold the hem of his chiton well up out of the way, baring his ass and part of his lower back to Nikandros's eyes.

His nicely rounded ass and toned back, Nikandros thought. Not that he should be thinking about that sort of thing when he was supposed to be instead focused on the wrongs that Pallas had done and how to correct them.

Careful to speak in an unaffected tone, Nikandros said, "Ask me nicely for the punishment you deserve."

Nikandros couldn't really deliver a much more sound beating than one that would just make it uncomfortable for Pallas to sit, let alone visit his 'friend' overnight, for a few days. That by itself likely wouldn't keep Pallas out of trouble, though it might help to a point. So Nikandros had to rely on other means of deterring him from repeating his unacceptable behaviour. Humiliation was the simplest, and hopefully also the most effective. A bruised ego hurt even more than a bruised ass for most men. Nikandros would ensure that Pallas had both before he was allowed to leave.

The words didn't pass Pallas's lips very easily, but they did finally emerge in a low voice: "Please, Kyros. Punish me."

Fuck. If that didn't go straight to Nikandros's cock. 

He didn't do this sort of thing with his slaves, for their punishment when required was dealt with by Kolnas. Nikandros had therefore never really had the opportunity to uncover the particular kind of desire he was now feeling at having Pallas beg to be put in his place before. A shame, for this was hardly the right time to explore it. It wouldn't do either of them any good if Nikandros turned this into something other than an actual punishment. With Nikandros's luck, he'd only end up reinforcing Pallas's poor behaviour that way. The last thing he needed was a guard who refused to follow orders because he was actively looking for a 'punishment'.

Nikandros hoped to partially distract himself from that prospect with the first swing of the switch. The crack of impact sounded worse than it probably felt, but it was nonetheless forceful enough to startle Pallas into rocking forward. The movement looked much the same as it might have had his body been pushed forward by a hard thrust of a cock inside him.

 _That_ wasn't helping.

Pallas had probably only rarely received _any_ kind of beating in his entire life, and even then, it would have only been delivered at his father's too-tender direction, if not at his father's actual hand. And yet Pallas endured Nikandros's treatment mostly stoically. Like a man, not a boy. Minimal noise left him except for when Nikandros made him say thank you for each strike, and then ask for the next. For the first fourteen hits Pallas stuck to an identical script for both. Before the fifteenth, though, he instead said, "Please Kyros, I need it."

Nikandros had been about to swing. The words stayed his hand for a moment, unexpected as they were.

He knew it would have been best to have just treated it as if the words were no more significant than saying 'punish me' yet again, the way Nikandros had told him to. But Nikandros lips were already moving, heedless of conventional logic. "You need what? My discipline?"

"Yes, Kyros."

Nikandros had never heard his title flow off a man's tongue so invitingly. 

"You want me to take a firm hand with you?" Nikandros pressed. "To keep you in line the way you're obviously begging for?"

"Yes, Kyros."

"Because you want to remain in my Guard, don't you?"

Breathier this time: " _Yes_ , Kyros. I want to be yours."

Oh shit.

With the skirt of Pallas's chiton still flipped up and him bent so far over at the hips, Nikandros had a nice clear view of the fact that Pallas was just as hard as Nikandros himself was, apparently heedless of how Pallas must have been in enough pain to counter his arousal at least slightly. Unless Pallas liked the pain itself as much as he seemed to like that Nikandros was the one delivering it, of course. 

It was difficult not to reach out and touch Pallas's stiff length, or to run his hand proprietarily over the reddened cheeks of Pallas's ass. But unlike Pallas, Nikandros knew better than to mix business with pleasure.

Nikandros forced himself to land another three blows before he called the punishment over. Much like Pallas's, Nikandros's breath was short, though it wasn't entirely from exertion. He hadn't been hitting that hard.

"You took your punishment well," Nikandros commended. "It's over now. So look at me."

Finally given permission to meet Nikandros's eyes like an equal (or close enough) again, Pallas craned his head around so that he could see Nikandros. He didn't rise at all from his kneeling position, though. Nikandros supposed he hadn't precisely given permission for that, even though he'd declared the punishment done.

Nikandros liked that Pallas would wait to receive further orders. He would make a very good guard if Nikandros could nurture that instinct. And he'd be very good at other things as well, Nikandros thought. 

And him staying in that position for now was all the better for what Nikandros wanted to do.

Nikandros pointedly, so that Pallas couldn't possibly mistake his meaning, placed the switch to the side then skimmed his now-free hand past his hip until it was grazing very specifically over where the cotton was very obviously tented at the front of his chiton. "You said you want to be mine. Do you want me to mark you as my own?" Nikandros asked.

Pallas made a strangled sound that Nikandros took as a yes.

"Beg me for that too, then."

Pallas's plea was heartfelt enough that it would have moved Nikandros to compliance even if he'd been reticent. As it happened, Nikandros didn't really need the additional incentive.

Nikandros would very much have liked to have pressed the head of his cock to Pallas's entrance and pushed in, claiming him that way. It was right there, and Nikandros could damn near feel the squeeze around his cock head, the mental picture of it was so lucid, fed by the intensity of his desire to do it. But Pallas was too high in rank for that to be acceptable (though Nikandros got the feeling Pallas himself would beg for it, uncaring of rank and propriety). And Nikandros had also already decided that he couldn't make this encounter _too_ pleasurable for Pallas, considering that it was supposed to be a punishment. 

Instead, Nikandros flipped his chiton out of the way and took himself in hand. He was worked up enough by the beating, and by Pallas asking him again and again for more, that it didn't take much attention at all before he was coming over the inflamed skin of Pallas's ass. Pallas hissed as the liquid hit. It must have stung. Good.

Once he squeezed the last drops out, Nikandros reached down and rubbed his come into Pallas's skin, almost like a healing salve except that Nikandros knew that it hurt more than it soothed. Pallas arched his back, shifting under the touch. Nikandros couldn't tell whether he was instinctively shifting away from the burn of it or was just squirming from the discomfort, but he didn't shift out of Nikandros's reach even though he could have. He was obviously allowing it.

"You're not to touch yourself anywhere below the waist for the remainder of the night, or to get anyone else to do so for you. Not even to clean yourself off," was the final instruction of Nikandros's punishment. Pallas's frustration at that was palpable. It was clear that his preferred method of dealing with his erection wasn't just to let it eventually go soft from inattention, but what he wanted didn't matter in this context. Maybe some other time, when he hadn't just been punished.

Speaking of which.

"And," Nikandros added, "if going into the village is what keeps making you late, you should probably restrict your movements to the fortress for the foreseeable future."

Pallas apparently knew better than to outright object, but it was clear that he was at least figuratively biting his tongue.

Nikandros normally wouldn't even mention such a thing. He usually didn't care to restrict who his men tumbled and when, as long as they were off-duty at the time and not putting Marlas at risk in any way during their assignations. Trying to dictate such things generally only led to unhappy guards, in Nikandros's experience. But this wasn't 'normal' circumstances.

Nikandros smoothed the edges of the order (for all that it had been phrased as a suggestion) by adding, "If you really require _companionship_ so badly, I think you'll find that you have no need to travel into the village for it. My door is usually open. And there's no risk of you sleeping past your dawn wakeup call if you're in my rooms, for I'm up by then myself."

Pallas looked oddly overwhelmed by the offer. Though maybe that was more to do with the aftermath of the beating. "Thank you, Kyros."

"Only after you've proven you can be on time for training every day for at _least_ the next week, that is," Nikandros said. 

"I'll be a model guard from now on, Kyros, I promise."

"I hope so," Nikandros said. "I have high hopes for your future."

Pallas departed, though only once Nikandros had explicitly dismissed him, and not without a lingering look back before he passed all the way out the door. His expression was hot with want right before it disappeared from Nikandros's view. Such a pity that Nikandros couldn't have bedded him properly tonight.

It was alright, though. He'd be back in _exactly_ a week anyway, Nikandros was sure.


End file.
